


Rhyming Dreams

by lori (zakhad)



Series: Captain and Counselor [15]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 16:58:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/lori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deanna visits with her "son."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rhyming Dreams

Deanna sat in front of the monitor in her quarters. It took too long to make the connection, but once it was made, she faced her mother over the light years and smiled.

"Hello, Little One," Lwaxana said, cheerful as always. "I'm so glad you called! It's been too long since the last time we actually spoke. What in the Six Houses have you been doing, that you can't spare your mother a few moments?" Only Mother could sound overjoyed and angry in the same breath.

"I do have duties, you know. And. . . I've decided that I'm going to pursue command. I've started working with Commander Data, toward -- "

Her mother clucked her tongue. "I thought you were a counselor, dear. Why would you think of doing something like that?"

"I've been a counselor for years. Now I'd like to try something else."

"Something else? You could try coming home!" Her mother fluttered a hand at the screen. "You could try something other than Starfleet."

"Mother, my career is Starfleet. After all these years, I'd think you would be able to accept that." Deanna leaned back in her chair, and stared at her mother with an expression she hoped would convey her disapproval.

"Deanna, you know I only have your best interests at heart. You told me once that you wanted a family. Has that changed?"

"No, Mother, you know it hasn't changed." She bit her lip, on the verge of telling all, but she had no idea how her mother would accept her choice of lover. If Mother took it well, she'd only start contacting Jean-Luc to push him forward. One of the few certainties in life -- Jean-Luc Picard and Lwaxana Troi were like Klingons and Romulans, best kept within their respective spheres of influence with only brief and sporadic contact. "I'm just not ready for a family. I enjoy being in Starfleet. It's a good career."

"It's also a dangerous career! I've always been a firm believer in letting my children do as they thought they should, but -- "

"All one of your children?"

"Oh, please, don't start being snide. You always resort to being snide when you're refusing to listen to me."

"How are you? Any news? How are Mwala and Plitty?" Asking about their cousins was usually good for a diversion.

"Wondering when you'll be home. They're both very well -- we're going to Shiralea in a week, to spend some time in the mud baths. You ought to take some leave and come with us! Doesn't that sound like fun?"

"Yes," Deanna said, glad her mother couldn't sense her at such a great distance. "It sounds like a lot of fun. But there's so much to be done -- we're supposed to be helping a -- "

"Deanna. You're the counselor. You told me you had a small staff -- certainly someone else could take over your appointments for a week? You could reschedule the ones you want to keep yourself." Her mother went straight-faced and leaned in, arms crossed on the counter in front of her. "I haven't seen you in months! Do I have to call Captain Picard myself and demand that you get some time off?"

"No, Mother, you don't -- there's just so much I have to do! I told you, I'm working toward -- "

"Dear, I don't understand what's gotten you on this tangent," Lwaxana sighed, scratching her forehead and smoothing her curls, "but I hope you wake up soon and realize how unsuitable and impossible it is -- if you truly want a family being in command of a ship would be the last thing you would want to do! Especially when starships seem to find trouble on a weekly basis. Honestly, the stories you've told me!"

It was a good thing she'd stuck to the less hair-raising stories. Deanna rolled her eyes. "I'm still here, aren't I? I still call you and we still see each other."

"Yes, you do call. Though you haven't called in months, and you haven't been home in more than a year -- that isn't like you, Little One." Mother smiled cannily. "Do I detect a man in your life? Come now, tell me all about him -- I'm your mother, I can keep secrets. I do keep yours, you know. I never once bothered your pet Klingon Mr. Woof -- "

"Mother, stop calling him that! And I don't feel like talking about him anyway. Just -- " Deanna sensed then that someone was looking for her. "I have to go, I'm sorry. My time's up."

"Time? Since when do they time your calls?"

"The ship is about to move into a region of space where long-range communications aren't manageable. I wanted to call before we went in, to let you know I'm all right and that if you don't get messages from me for a while, that's why." Too rushed, and borderline babbling, but she hoped she could be excused for it due to the supposed lack of time.

Her mother raised an eyebrow, but didn't voice skepticism. "Well, thank you for that, dear. Take care of yourself -- and I expect a full report on this man you're hiding from me. He must be something, if you don't want to share. Say hello to your friends for me. Especially Captain Picard -- I've always been fond of him even if he never gave me a look. You know, what that man needs is a few lessons in relaxation. There's a sensual man under all that nonsense about duty. It's really too bad he's so caught up in his image and his career to -- "

"Mother, I have to go. I love you."

A genuine smile lit her face. "I love you, too, Little One. Call again soon."

"I will." Deanna kissed her fingertips and pressed them to the screen, and Lwaxana did the same. Then the display blanked to the Federation logo, leaving her with nothing but a cool surface against her fingers.

Deanna suffered some moments of guilt for making up the imposed communications blackout, but it really happened sometimes -- space wasn't devoid of its own type of weather, after all. She'd thought she could make the explanation this year, but once again, failure. It was still too close to her heart, if anything closer because of Jean-Luc, and talking about it with Mother would be too difficult.

She rose and went to the other side of the room, stared out one of the viewports, and ordered the lights down. These quarters were looking less like a home and more like guest quarters these days, as her heart had taken up residence down the hall. It didn't matter -- she would have some privacy here.

The stars gleamed in the blackness, winking and flickering. The *Enterprise* hovered in space, and the disabled freighter hovering out of her line of sight under the nose of the Sovereign-class vessel was being rigged for safe towing after a disastrous accident in their engineering. Malfunctions were common on privately-owned vessels, which were often operated on a shoestring budget by freight companies and crewed by people with less-than-adequate training.

While she waited, she sensed a second person looking for her, the uncertainty and puzzlement, and turned around as the door opened. The only person who could walk unannounced into her quarters without her disapproval had found her, and Jean-Luc hesitated as the doors closed, glancing at the ceiling. The lights being down startled him, as did finding her here. And, as he came to her, the questioning began. Rather than say a word, he took her face in his hands and waited. He knew any change in the status quo meant something was up.

"I talked to Mother," she said. "There were also a few things here that I wanted to go through. There's a limit to how much I can fit in -- in your quarters."

He nodded, gave her the small, contented smile that mostly showed in his eyes, and put his arms around her. The gentle kiss deepened; she lost herself in it gladly, awash in heart fire. They parted and he kissed her temple.

"Our quarters," he murmured.

"I can't get in the habit of -- "

"You can. What would you like for dinner? I was thinking we could try -- " He cut himself off as he looked up, then drew her aside as he reached for his comm badge. She caught his hand.

"No. I've been waiting for him."

"Him? Who -- "

Soft blue light bloomed overhead. One of the stars moved through the viewport and came to hover before them. Deanna reached for it, cradling it in her palm.

"Happy birthday, Ian," she whispered, letting the tears spill over.

The thoughts formed in her head via a process she had no terms for -- it wasn't telepathy as she experienced with her mother, nor was it empathy. She responded to him as well as she could to answer the inquiry he made about Jean-Luc. Deanna watched him circle, tracing orbits around their heads and a spiral down to the floor, then back up to hover before Jean-Luc's nose.

"Ian," he said, mouth twitching in a curious smile. "Of course. Hello, again."

The being flared white for a second, then went to Deanna's cheek. She felt the light tickle of Ian's equivalent of a kiss. A farewell, and he was gone, winging his way into the stars once more.

They watched the brilliant blue dot disappear. Jean-Luc was amused. She wondered why, but couldn't speak around the lump in her throat. Hands to her mouth, she put her head on his shoulder.

This was what she had hoped to avoid. This pain, this hollowness, should have been something she bore alone, as she had every anniversary of Ian's unusual birth and brief existence as her son. A muffled sound escaped her against her will.

Jean-Luc's arms went around her again, and tightened -- she realized as surprise watered down the anguish and let her sense his emotions again that he somehow mirrored her pain. He missed, as she did, with that acuteness only parents could feel.

It reminded her of Christmas just a month before, when while babysitting with her for a Christmas party he had gone through a sort of melancholy laced with similar emotions. He had passed it off as angst over his own childhood, but now she wondered if it had more to do with his life on Kataan. Missing the two children he had raised in the virtual recreation of Ressik would explain it.

How ironic that they both missed their children who never really had been -- though she supposed it was possible his had existed as children, in some fashion. It remained uncertain how much of what he'd lived had been Kamin's and how much had been created in cooperation with his own imagination.

"Mother wants me to take some leave and go with her to Shiralea."

It broke the mood, for the moment. "Do you want to do that?"

"No." She put her arms around his waist and pushed her nose against his chin. "You wouldn't want to go."

Happy as that made him, he sighed. "You need leave once in a while, too. And you should see your mother when you can. . . ."

Something inside snapped, and the sobs tumbled out of her on top of each other. The front of his uniform smelled like smoke and his cologne -- he'd been on the freighter looking over the damage. His palm against her cheek pressed her to his shoulder and kept her there, though she knew he would let go if she wanted to move away. She let the tears come, and he bore it.

He even stood a while after, holding her until the last spastic sobs stopped coming. "Better now?"

His hand on her shoulder steadied her. She smiled, rubbing her eyes, and shook her head. "I'm sorry -- I didn't mean to inflict that on you."

"You came here to be alone, didn't you? Why didn't you tell me? I would have left. Or stayed, if you wanted me to."

Tears wouldn't stop flowing, though they did come slowly and silently. She couldn't look at his face. He could be so gentle, and it could disarm her so completely.

"You want me to leave?"

"No," she whispered. His jacket was wet -- she'd smeared makeup on it, too. "Where did you learn to be this patient?"

He ignored the attempt at distraction -- he'd gotten better at recognizing when she tried it. "I didn't know you missed him this much. Does he come back every year?"

"Sometimes he missed the day. He came a week late one year, and saw that I was sad because I thought he had stopped coming, so he's made a point of being more punctual. Because he knew how I felt, when he -- when I lost -- "

It took a long time for her to stop crying. Jean-Luc said nothing, just held her, and when it eased off at last kissed her forehead. "I understand."

"I didn't -- expect you to," she gasped, trying to recover.

"I know. But loss of a child, for whatever reason, is not something a parent can forget."

"Thank you, for holding me."

"What did he tell you? Does he speak to you?"

"He wishes me well," she murmured. "He regrets causing me distress. It's why he comes back -- he's completely alien, their reproductive methods are nothing like ours, and he has no concept of parental affection. But he knows what grief is, and he knows he caused me to feel it. He has his own concept of guilt and responsibility."

"So, for twelve years, he comes to see you on his birthday. I wish. . . . Dee? What is it?"

"I released him," she whispered, the tears starting again. "I told him not to come back. Thanked him for his loyalty and his attempt to make up for what he did -- that I didn't need to see him again. It isn't as though it was anything he did out of love for me. It probably disrupts his life to go journeying through the galaxy looking for me. I told him I had recovered from the grief."

"He couldn't tell you were lying?"

Her grip on his arm probably hurt, but he didn't complain. "He could. That's why he came again this year. So when he asked about you, I told him what you were to me, and that I'd be fine -- that he didn't have to keep coming back. I convinced him I wasn't lonely or full of grief any more. He said that made him happy and said good-bye."

"Which is why you keep crying. I'm sorry, cygne." He kissed her hair and rubbed circles on her back. "Let's go get something to eat."

On the way to his quarters, he walked close behind with a hand on her arm as if he had to guide her along, or as if he might be afraid she would run from him. It was intended to be a comforting gesture, judging from the way he felt. Seating her at the table, he brought them dinner without speaking a word. He hardly looked at her, in fact. Nor did he ask her if she wanted to talk about it during or after the meal. It reminded her again of how much she appreciated that determination of his to always give her the choice. Talk, or not. Keep it to herself, or not.

While he cleared the table and left the room, she sat on the couch, letting her head fall back. The stars seemed cold and distant. Jean-Luc returned from the bedroom sans jacket, but still wore the red shirt. He met her eyes for the first time since they'd come in. Holding out a hand, she smiled as he took it and sat with her, then tugged on her fingers. She slid to put her head in his lap, pulled her feet up, and closed her eyes.

His hand came to rest on her chest -- not a grope, just a companionable weight on her collar bone. All the crying had made her eyes sore. She let weariness set her adrift in the quiet. She was nearly asleep when the sound of him humming caught her attention.

{What is that song?} she asked, not wanting to interrupt it.

"Just an old melody. I don't remember the words," he said, defying her attempt. He smoothed her hair and let his fingertips brush her forehead, then traced her cheek as if wiping away tears beneath her eyes.

She peered through her lashes at his face. His solemnity bothered her -- because of a note of insecurity within it, a questioning he probably wouldn't voice. He rarely did when there was this much seriousness in him.

"I love you, Jean-Fish."

He smiled, but briefly. His mouth returned to a slight frown too quickly. "I'm sorry about the mood. Thinking too much, again."

Covering the hand that still lay upon her chest with her own, she closed her eyes again. "That's all right. I'm not any better."

"But you make it better."

"A shared joy is doubled, a shared grief -- "

" -- is halved. I knew a counselor who told me that, once." He waited a few beats. "Wonder what happened to her? Marvelous creature. Stunning eyes. It could be difficult not to leer at her sometimes, she had this habit of wearing eye-popping dresses to social functions -- what?"

Deanna glared at him one-eyed. "You leered."

"Damned empath." He smiled, unperturbed. "You asked for it, though, by wearing dresses the size of handkerchiefs."

His eyes were darker than usual. They could change, depending on lighting and what he wore. At the moment they seemed to be the color of the tea he favored. She touched his cheek tentatively; he turned his head toward the contact and let his eyelids drift shut as he kissed her palm.

"Mother thinks I'm making a mistake, pursuing command," she murmured, letting her hand fall to his chest.

"Your mother doesn't appear to understand any more than my parents did. Maman accepted it -- she came close to understanding, but she didn't quite know what to make of it other than a young man's search for adventure. Do you think you're making a mistake?"

"No."

He studied her through lidded eyes. "What's the unspoken thing you left off?"

"She pointed out that I couldn't have a family, if I pursued command."

Snorting, he said, "That isn't necessarily so. It makes it difficult, that's all. Things are only impossible -- "

" -- until they're not. Do you suppose finishing each others sentences means we need new material?"

He chewed the inside of his cheek. "We haven't talked about family. Existing, or the possible future -- "

"Do I want too much? Is everything too much?"

He pondered that, looking away at the table, then sliding his eyes back to hers. "Define 'too much.' Define 'everything.'"

"I don't know." Too close to tears. She couldn't have this discussion with him yet. The mood was all wrong. "I know what I'd really like right now -- do you have another poem for me, Jean-Fish?"

"None so eloquent as your eyes, but I do my best." He leaned his left elbow on the back of the couch and propped his head on his hand, thinking, smiling down at her with admiring eyes. "Well. . . this isn't exactly a poem. But it will do. 'I dreamt that she sat by my head, tenderly ruffling my hair with her fingers, playing the melody of her touch. I looked at her face and struggled with my tears, till the agony of unspoken words burst my sleep like a bubble. I sat up and saw the glow of the Milky Way above my window, like a world of silence on fire, and I wondered if at this moment she had a dream that rhymed with mine.'"

"Oh," she blurted. "Did you just come up with that?"

"No -- it's a result of a cross-reference I did with the computer, looking for something that expressed the way I feel when I watch you sleep."

She knew he sometimes had such emotional dreams that it woke her. She hadn't known he would wake and watch her sleep. That was all right -- she watched him often, and turnabout was fair play. At the moment, his emotions were the more distracting thing -- he loved, but he also felt some poignant wanting that made her think that perhaps he, too, held something back. Some dream of his that he couldn't feel free to voice.

Continuing to look in his eyes with the warmth of his emotions flowing over her was proving too much -- her eyes watered, and rather than cry again she closed them and sidled closer, until her cheek rested against his stomach. Listening to the silence lulled them both to peacefulness. She peeked, and saw that he appeared to be falling asleep with his head propped there on his bent arm. Her beau capitaine -- just the way she loved to see him, relaxed and with most of the lines falling away from his features.

&lt;I wish I could be here forever. I wish I could tell you that, Jean-Luc. I wish I could find out if our dreams rhyme.&gt;

But that would have to wait. She wouldn't push him into anything before he decided for himself that was what he wanted to do. Demands would drive him away, questions might make him panic, suggestions might result in his making decisions solely to please her. She wanted, but only if he were willing to give freely. The relationship could grow to whatever end it would; she enjoyed it as it was, though she did sometimes long for more.

His eyes opened. "What are you doing?" At times, he could briefly sense her emotions, contrary to what was reasonable by Betazoid standards.

"Dreaming."

The tiny wrinkle appeared on the bridge of his nose. He contemplated, then said, "I do that a lot myself. I wonder sometimes what it would be like to be in love with someone, to come home every night to a warm smile and a kiss. Someone who doesn't mind that I'm just a selfish old burrhog with a uniform."

"Someone who loves to lick chocolate off your chest."

"Someone who has eloquent eyes, a gentle touch, a lovely smile and a musical voice. And then, while I'm wondering, I wake up and find out exactly what it's like."

She wanted to laugh for joy at it, but sagged and felt the tears start again. Gathering her up, he pulled her into his lap and let her cry, again without questioning, verbally or otherwise. At length she lay in his arms and stared up at the stars, cheek to his shoulder, tears still blurring her vision.

The words came out before she finished thinking them, almost. Though her voice cracked and faltered, she sang as long as she could. Her father had sung it to her; she had a recording of him doing so, and she had sung it to Ian, during those brief hours she could hold him.

"Lullaby, and good night,  
In the sky stars are bright,  
'Round your head,  
Flowers gay,  
Set your slumbers till day

Close your eyes  
Now and rest,  
May these hours  
Be blessed

Lullaby and good night,  
In the sky stars. . . ."

She trailed off, realizing that Jean-Luc hummed along with her. He paused after she stopped, then looked up at the stars and sang softly.

"Bonne nuit cher enfant,  
Dans tes langes blanches,  
Repose joyeux,  
En rêvant des cieux,  
Quand le jour reviendra,  
Tu te réveilleras  
Quand le jour reviendra  
Tu te réveilleras. . . ."

That inevitable moment of self-consciousness hit. He began that slow emotional withdrawal that happened when he found himself doing something he felt he couldn't do well enough.

"Do you know any other lullabies?" she asked, letting her weariness creep into her voice. Which wasn't hard, with all the crying she'd done. "Could you sing me to sleep? I love listening to your voice, it's very soothing."

He hesitated, skeptical and battling his own perception of his ability. "I'm afraid I'd damage your ears."

"Don't be ridiculous. I don't care if you're even in tune, I just feel better hearing your voice."

"If it's my voice you want, I could read to you." The diplomatic captain reared his bald head, seeking compromise. She smiled and settled closer in his arms.

"Mm, yes, that would be good. Do you take requests?"

"I suppose I could."

"'The Dream of the Fire,' in the original Klingon."

His mouth set itself in the way it usually did when he was torn between swearing and laughing. In seconds, the reaction downgraded itself to begrudging amusement. "I suppose you would allow me to sing the lullabies in whatever language I wish?"

"I'm just teasing, Jean-Fish. All I really want is a nap. I've cried myself worthless. Though I should get ready for bed, if I'm going to just go to sleep. . . ."

It set him at ease. But after she showered, put on one of his old shirts and got under the covers, he came to sit with her, holding the padd he'd been studying when she came out of the bathroom. He kissed her, showing the affection he felt in the tenderness of the gesture, then turned out the lights. The pale light of the padd cast a greenish tint on his face as he raised it.

"That. . . isn't Dream of the Fire, is it?" she asked as he opened his mouth. He closed it again, trying to stifle a puckish smirk.

"My cygne wanted to hear it. Whatever cygne wants, she gets."

"There's something else I want, since you're being so kind. I don't suppose you could fly the ship through a nebula or something?"

A genuine frown pulled his brows down. "Whatever for?"

"They sometimes disrupt communications, and I really hate lying to my mother."

He laughed aloud at it. "I think you know that won't be permissible. I hear the captain frowns on that sort of thing."

"Well, then, I'd like to sleep now. Without the Klingon novel."

He turned off the padd and kissed her again, this time on the temple, then left the room.

She closed her eyes. The haze of sleep drifted over her within moments; she nestled deeper into the pillow, taking comfort in Jean-Luc's reassuring presence nearby.

She woke when he came to bed with no awareness of how much time had passed. Jean-Luc tried not to disturb her, he always tried, but never could get the other foot off the floor before she knew he was there. He settled in, letting himself think of something that preoccupied him enough that she was almost sitting upright before he noticed she was awake.

"Sorry," he muttered. He welcomed her into his arm, letting her use his chest for a pillow, and patted her shoulder. "Okay?"

"Mm-hmm. 'Night."

Though her eyes still felt tired, she couldn't convince her body to let her sleep, probably because she'd slept a few hours and gotten her second wind. She listened to him breathing instead. He wasn't sleeping either. She thought about suggesting something, but he still seemed preoccupied, so she let him have the uninterrupted privacy of his thoughts.

And then she froze as he spoke softly, the words resonating in his chest beneath her ear.

"In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud  
and your form and colour are the way I love them.  
You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips  
and in your life my infinite dreams live.

The lamp of my soul dyes your feet,  
the sour wine is sweeter on your lips,  
oh reaper of my evening song,  
how solitary dreams believe you to be mine!

You are mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon's  
wind, and the wind hauls on my widowed voice.  
Huntress of the depths of my eyes, your plunder  
stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water.

You are taken in the net of my music, my love,  
and my nets of music are wide as the sky.  
My soul is born on the shore of your eyes of mourning.  
In your eyes of mourning the land of dreams begins."

She pushed up and looked him in the eye. As she did so, the spectral shift blurred the stars into motion -- they were under way again, the freighter in tow. In the dim light, Jean-Luc's eyes looked black as hers, and the movement of their sky at warp reflected in them.

Rather than respond to what she thought he might be trying to tell her, she laid a hand along his face, smiled, and settled in his arms. He was content with that. She was content, for the moment, to feel the flush of heart fire along her skin and to love him. She forced the idea of him singing lullabies in French to children to remain where it belonged, in the land of dreams.

__________________

_The quotation is by Rabindranath Tagore. The poem is a paraphrase of Tagore's "The Gardener" done by Pablo Neruda and translated by W.S. Merwin. (Confused yet? So was I.) _

_The song is, of course, Brahms' Lullaby, a version lifted from Celine Dion for the sake of the French verse._


End file.
